Jenova Absolute
by Lucifer's Seraphim
Summary: Chronicles pretty much the entire game, now, at around six years till the start of the game! For the love of the Gods, someone, please, please review this!
1. The Original Crisis

Author's Note:

When I was playing Final Fantasy VII, like others, I wondered quite a lot about the backstory of this great epic. I got to wondering: How did Shin-Ra find Jenova? How did Ifalnya and Aeris escape Shin-Ra Tower? Who decided to build the Sister Ray? I really felt that this needed explanation, and all the fanfics I read did nothing to elucidate. Several points were briefly touched upon but I wanted to know more, more about Jenova, more about the love triangle between Hojo, Vincent, and Lucretia, what led to Hojo's discrediting of Gast and why he stormed into that little house in Icicle. Since I had found nothing, I decided that writing my own fic was the only way to help me understand. This was originally intended as a short fic about Jenova, but it blossomed into something complex and beautiful. I hope you enjoy it.

BTW, I'll say that everything belongs, unfortunately, to SquareSoft, who, sadly, have seemed to have lost their ability to make an RPG that's any good. VII is the zenith of the RPG genre. Final Fantasy is the cream of RPGs everywhere, and I'd just like to say to anyone who works for Square that VIII was a very bad idea and that they should have thought things through.

"_Veni, veni, venias,_

Ne me mori facias."

She awoke, cold. She had been trapped in the great ice for millennia, and had woken rarely, only when the glacier above her had melted enough to bring some warmth to her, but always the ice had built up, too quickly to bring her influence against it. But this time...this time, a living being brought on the warmth. She conducted a quick probe of the being's mind, and discovered that it was an intelligent creature, with organized thoughts. Such a mind she had not felt for ages unspeakable, when the Cetra had banished her from their land and their kind, to be entombed in the glacier to the north, near the crater that had appeared when she had ridden the meteor down from the stars, and brought down destruction from the skies upon them. 

But thinking of past matters was no use now. She scanned the creature's thoughts again, and learned that it was searching for artifacts left behind by the Cetra.

Pitiful thing, really. It hardly seemed to be worth the effort it would require to attract its attention. But still, she needed to be free, to glorify in her body once more, free of the ice, free to taste the wind, to feast upon the minds of those she brought under her power. Bringing the tatters of her magical abilities to her, she sent out a spell of calling, and waited.

*****

Professor Gast gave a cry of triumph when he saw a shape on his Shin-Ra brand archaeological finder. His search for artifacts left behind by the Cetra had been fruitless, and he desperately needed to find _something_, as Shin-Ra was about to cut his funding. And here, before his bespectacled eyes, was what seemed to be a vast treasure trove of items, only a kilometre or so to the west of his camp. He quickly stuffed a lighter, wood, a brush, pick, and shovel into a knapsack, pulled on his coat, and strapped on his snowshoes. He told his assistant that he would be back in a while, and left the camp, rushing toward his find. Soon he was at the site, and he lit a fire above the main deposit, to melt the ice. He had not long to wait.

*****

She felt the heat of the fire her being had lit, and exulted in the fact that soon she would be free of her arctic prison. She sent out a thought to the creature, subconsciously suggesting that a little more wood couldn't hurt. The thing obeyed her command, and the fire drew nearer.

*****

Gast piled more wood upon the fire, fervently hoping that the blaze would not harm his find. He was able to see a reddish-blue, and brown mass in the thickness of the ice, and his excitement rose as he thought of what might be in his discovery. Gold? Jewels? Perhaps it was a frozen Cetra! Heaven only knew. 

After a short time, Gast saw that a bit of something organic-looking was poking out through the ice. At first he thought it was leather or wood, but then...but then it..._twitched_. He gave a little cry of terror, then common sense took over. Surely, the motion had been caused by gravity, pulling down that which had been frozen for aeons. He moved the burning wood into a circle around his find, so the flames wouldn't damage his precious specimen. Then he waited.

*****

She felt the being's terror, then calmness. It seemed that this thing was more intelligent than she had thought at first, if it had worried about its new 'specimen'...although the flames would not hurt her. After centuries of freezing cold, she had built up a resistance to extreme temperatures. She settled in for a long wait.

*****

Hours passed. The flames gradually melted the ice, until a pillar of it rose fifteen feet into the frigid air, in a deep pool. Gast could see that this thing was, or once had been, a living thing. Obviously, it was one of the Cetra.

At last! A specimen worth the years he had spent on his search! And what a wonderful being it was...vaguely treelike, obviously female, with bluish skin and wing-like extensions from the shoulders. No arms or legs were evident. It towered above him, and he could see all of it! The DNA samples Shin-Ra wanted would be theirs, and his colleagues, Lucretia and Hojo, would be pleased with the tissue samples they had to work with. Perhaps...perhaps they could clone this creature, and have countless specimens to use at their leisure...

There was no time to waste. He set a beacon, and skied back to his camp to radio for assistance in moving his priceless find.

*****

She felt the saw cut beneath her, narrowly missing her. She was picked up, and lifted into the air, and taken to a strange white room, full of gleaming steel instruments. She used her influence to make the instruments of these puny creatures lie, to tell them that she was dead. It would not be a good idea to reveal herself yet, that much her instincts told her. A needle was inserted, and she felt a small part of her be taken away for analysis. She was placed in a large, warm room, to thaw. Such warmth she had not felt for ages, and she motionlessly stood, basking in the dull red light of the heater units. Then she was carted back into the white room, packed into a large metal container, and shipped far away, to what she knew was the west. There she was placed in a glass tank, set into a room filled with the luminescent substance that was the Planet's blood...sealed into a great chamber, over a chasm of unknowable depth, to sleep. As long as it took for the right person to come along. They always did. She could wait for an eternity. Her last conscious thought for two years was of knowing what the small creatures called humans had engraved above the door to her prison, and what they had engraved on the small headpiece they had fitted her with, presumably to monitor brain activity or some strange little human purpose. Humorous that they had given her the same name as the Cetra had so long ago. _Jenova._ She fell asleep, looking at the stylized statue of her that had been mounted on the access tube.

Notes:

Well, that's not that bad for a first start, is it? Don't worry, the next part is really good and has Vincent in! And I know how people like Vincent! And all this with Jenova, this is interesting, no? I think that for this first bit I was heavily influenced by Anne McCaffery's Dragonflight. Very good book. But I just want you all to read the next bit!


	2. That is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie, ...

Author's Notes:

Congratulations, you've made it to part two! Well, don't worry because the storyline will become more interesting! 

*insert legal B.S. here*

__

"Sors immanis-

Et inanis"

"Gast, this is amazing! Wherever did you find it?" A young, attractive woman looked at Gast, then at the specimen. It was so...so elegant. Gast had finally found one of the Cetra!

"I found it in the ice fields near North Crater...it must be very old. The geological strata near it spoke of millennia, not centuries, like near the other artifacts we found..." Gast looked at his assistant. She was so beautiful, his specimen...not in the physical sense, but the mental. Here was one of the ancestors of every person on Earth!

"Already, they've started their SOLDIER program..." drawled a slightly older man, to Gast's left. He was a little taller, and had black hair, tightly pulled back in a ponytail, and emphasized his high forehead, and, unfortunately, his receding hairline. He had small spectacles perched on his nose, and was hunched forward from years of sitting at a microscope, examining the cellular structure of the being they had named Jenova. He had an unholy fascination with his work, spending days at his stool, not stopping to eat or even sleep. "They plan to inject the cloned cells of Jenova into their recruits, then shower them with Mako, and they think they can create the ultimate soldier..." He elaborated, "It certainly made the rats more vicious to those without the enhancement..."

"Hojo. I really don't know if their using Jenova cells on humans after only two years testing is safe...Jenova is astoundingly complex, and the cells replicate so easily...almost as if she's a virus..." The woman turned and looked nervously at the tall man, and then looked back at Jenova. "So hideous...why does Shin-Ra want better soldiers, anyway? Are they planning a war or something?"

'Lucretia, I'm not a member of the higher councils. They only ask me to come up there when they want some little bits of our friend, here..." Hojo tried to put Lucretia's fears at rest. "And if they were having a war, who would they have it against? The only people the Shin-Ra don't like are the people over to the west who're against Mako energy...what was the name...oh, yes! Wutai! And I'm sure that Shin-Ra understands. There are people in Midgar, and they don't like Mako either, and they haven't been killed, have they? Everything is perfectly fine, Lucretia." Lucretia seemed to accept Hojo's explanation, and she started looking at a small screen attached to a cable that had been inserted into Jenova's body. She evidently saw something that concerned her, for she looked up at Gast with surprise. "Gast! She's...she's...alive! She's not dead!"

"What?! That's impossible! She was frozen in ice for eons! She must be dead! Nothing we know of can withstand that kind of punishment!" Gast stared at Jenova, perplexed and amazed.

"Indeed. Nothing we _know_ of can live. But Jenova is an anomaly to all of us. She is the only example we have of the Cetra. That is why we were sent here to study her. To find more about her. To see if we can improve the bodies of our soldiers. To extend our knowledge of the Earth, into the distant past. That is why we are here. Now. Let us go and have our dinner. We have been down here half the day, and I for one am hungry!" Hojo then turned and left the room. Lucretia and Gast followed him, and as they passed through the doorway, a tall, dark man clad in a navy blue tuxedo came after them, without a look into the chamber of Jenova. His eyes were fixed on the slender form of Lucretia.

*****

How fascinated they were with her! Their little probings and samplings kept them engrossed for hours! Obviously, they were trying to learn as much about her and the time she had lived as possible...but still, they thought she was one of the Cetra! Amazing, to think that she who had endeavoured to destroy that pesky race should now be thought to be one of them...

Already she felt the first stirrings of life in the pieces of her that the humans had injected into their soldiers...soon she would be able to manipulate them whenever she desired. For now, she would continue on with her masquerade, let them think she was dormant, and allow them to take as many samples of her as they wished. She felt that the one called Hojo was enamoured of her, and he clearly spent more time around her than the others, often sneaking to the Reactor late at night, to conduct a further study. This perplexed her, as she had not exerted any force upon the being's mind to summon it to her. 

Now that she was in clear surroundings, she was able to feel an enmity towards her from the north. She attempted to do a scan, but could not get a clear reading. Curious, she looked into the minds of those who studied her, but they seemed to know nothing of this new menace. What if it was one of the Cetra? She had felt their presence fade over the aeons, until a small amount of them were left. Fortunately, the few that still existed could pose no large threat to her. She did a more detailed survey, and found that only one of the Ancients was left, and was alone in the northern wastes, near the crater she had made, doing its best to heal the grievous wound the Planet had received. Let it wait. Soon, when she slew all these wretched humans, or held them all under her power, she could go and eliminate this last pitiful remnant of the Cetra.

*****

A year passed. Jenova felt another being's anger, and aroused, investigated, seeking the source. She found a growing enmity between Hojo and the one assigned to guard the scientists. Strange. This tiny conflict seemed to revolve around the female, Lucretia, concerning an emotion Jenova had ever felt. Of course, the only emotions she had ever felt were hate, longing, and desire, but this new one...love, it was called. Like what Hojo felt for her. Jenova settled in to watch this struggle.

*****

Vincent Valentine of the Turks, stared at Hojo behind the shelter of the truck, monitoring him and Lucretia. How dare he! How dare Hojo lure away she who had made his life so fair, and bring back the darkness that had consumed him! As he watched, from the meager shelter of the abandoned truck, he felt stirrings of jealousy, hate, and desire. He would stop Hojo...eventually. Anger is a dish best served cold, and Vincent knew that when he was least expecting it, Hojo could be the victim of a very nasty accident. What if a heavy piece of laboratory equipment fell on him? Lucretia would be disconsolate, and she would need a shoulder to cry on. And when she did, Vincent would be waiting.

Notes: 

Ooohh! Romantic intrigue! How will things work out with Vincent, Lucretia, and Hojo? What's going ON with Hojo, anyway? Why is he visiting Jenova in the dead of night? How can he think about food when Jenova is actually alive? When the hell will Sephiroth arrive in this damn fic?

Answers in the next chapter!


	3. Birth of the God

Author's Notes:

Aha! Sephiroth appears at last!

"_She loves me..._

She loves me not.

She loves me...

She loves me not."

"Hojo! Guess what!" Lucretia exclaimed, as she burst into Hojo's room in the vast Shin-Ra Mansion. "I was just down to the town clinic to see why I've been sick in the mornings, and you know what he said?"

"Let me guess, dear. Seeing as you've not been as nasty every month, you've had strange cravings, and have had morning sickness, it would seem that you're going to have a baby." Hojo looked at Lucretia with a small amount of interest, seemingly trying to please her.

"You're right! And you know who the father must be, right?" Lucretia walked over to Hojo, and put a more-than-friendly arm around his shoulder.

"Of course. Who else have you been seeing besides that worthless Vincent? And you haven't been seeing him for three months. Therefore, I must be the father." Hojo tried to look happy." Yay."

"Yes! Only earlier today, I was ordinary Lucretia, and now I'm going to make the world a better place. I want the best for our child, dear. Perhaps he'll discover the cure for cancer, or the common cold!" Lucretia closed her eyes, dreaming of a world where she was the mother of the most important person on the Planet.

"Lucretia dear...I think I know how our child can be strong, smart, and worthy. With your consent of course..." Hojo brightened up, obviously having what he thought was a great idea. "You know how well the warriors who have been enhanced by the Jenova program are superior people...what if we subjected a person to Jenova and Mako _in uetero_? It can't have any adverse effects, and our child can be a super-being!" Hojo now stared at Lucretia with adoration, attempting to increase his chances for his plan.

"Weeeelllll...you're right when you say that there are no side effects, other than superiority...but would it have any effects on me? I mean, what if Jenova has side effects of people who're going to have a baby?" Lucretia seemed to agree with Hojo's plan, but was also worried.

"Relax my dear! I assure you that our wonderful specimen would not harm someone as beautiful as you! She did nothing bad to the rats, right? Don't you want the best for our child?" Hojo tried to comfort Lucretia, this time with actual love.

"Well. All right...I do want the best for him. Yes. Let's do it! As soon as possible!" Lucretia leapt wholeheartedly into Hojo's plan, obviously believing everything that Hojo told her.

*****

The plan went into action almost immediately. Fresh cells were taken from Jenova, and injected into the two-month old fetus, and into the surrounding tissue of Lucretia's womb. No adverse effects were noted, and the fetus was then treated with Mako, bathing it in a cool, green-blue glow.

Jenova felt the first stirrings of the fetus, and was pleased, knowing that the child would be more responsive to her commands, being subjected to her at such an early age.

*****

The months went by with great speed, and Hojo and Lucretia went to Midgar, to Shin-Ra Tower, so Lucretia could have the baby in the best medical surroundings. The little remaining time passed, and other than a few bouts of fainting while exercising in the hospital corridors, Lucretia was fine, until she went into labour. She gave birth to her child in a cool, sterile white room, much like the one in which the Shin-Ra scientists had studied Jenova. When the child was delivered, a collective gasp of wonder went through the room. The baby had silver hair and glowing green eyes! With slitted pupils! Lucretia was informed that she had a healthy son, and she decided on a name. _Sephiroth_. Sephiroth was whisked away for study, and Lucretia never saw him again. She never had a chance to hold him.

A few months after Sephiroth was born, Lucretia died, of a complication of stress, depression, and an unknown disease that seemed to be devouring her mind. When Sephiroth was five years old, and began playing with other children of famous and important people in the Shin-Ra child care area, such as Rufus, the son of President Shin-Ra, and a group of very close friends, Reno, Rude, Tseng, and Elena, he noticed from television that other children had mothers, and he inquired about his own. He was told by a caregiver that his mother's name was Jenova, and she had died in childbirth. Sephiroth never asked a question about his parents again. Soon, he was removed from the childcare unit and began his training as a warrior under one of Shin-Ra's best soldiers.

Notes:

Well, Hojo certainly has a hidden agenda, don't you think? Poor Lucretia...I really think she had potential as a character...if only she'd had more development...

Hojo sure is a bastard, isn't he?


	4. The Nightmare Begins

Author's Notes:

Hojo makes his move. Easy enough.

__

"I must...atone for my sins."

How wonderful! She had succeeded and the small one was becoming a full slave! An order that she had regarded as unimportant, that of young Sephiroth's mother, had let the child believe that _she_ was his mother! Incredible! When he found her and released her from her prison, he would be completely obedient to her! Already, Hojo was treating his unwitting son to Mako showers and increasing amounts of her cells. And the training with the gigantic sword...how useful _that_ would be to her, she could not guess, but she had a feeling that it would help in bringing the world under her command. And the small conflict between Vincent and Lucretia...that had ended very suddenly when he found she was with child. After she died, he ceased to care, and seemed to give in to the darkness, becoming prone to fits of deep depression. Perhaps he, too would be useful to her. Gast had gone back to the north to seek more Cetra findings, and Hojo fell farther into the fathomless abyss of mystery that surrounded her, spending more and more time in the secret room in the heart of the Mako Reactor. She decided to lie dormant for a while, and rest. Activating all those parts of her that had been placed into the bodies of the inferior beings was hard work, and though she was augmented by the other tiny consciousnesses, still, she needed sleep. Jenova slid into a period of rest.

*****

"Hojo, you've got to stop this! You're becoming a madman!" Vincent burst into Hojo's lab in the basement of the Shin-Ra Mansion. Irate over Lucretia's death, he wanted to put an end to this...madness that had enveloped Shin-Ra. Hojo had become increasingly obsessed with his precious 'Specimen' and was now gaunt, pale, and horrifying to behold. His weeks spent at his microscope had transformed him into a hunchback, and now he stood blinking in the bright light from the hallway that flooded his darkened laboratory. 

"A madman, you say? How can you call me a madman? I have done the greatest possible deed for this Planet! Jenova can make everything better! How _dare_ you call me a madman!" Hojo rose to his full height, fire flashing in his eyes.

"Yes! A madman! You've sacrificed Lucretia to your miserable experiment, and you're killing yourself! You must stop this foolishness!" Vincent reached for the gun concealed in his loose sport jacket. Hojo noted this with his dark eyes, and placed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, as if in shame. And stroked the pistol he had hidden there.

"Very well. Try and stop me, fool," Hojo whispered to himself, seeming to mumble to himself in contrition. Vincent drew his rifle, but before he had a chance to fire, Hojo had whipped out his tiny pistol and emptied the clip into Vincent's body, sending the younger man flying. Hojo returned the pistol to his pocket after poking the Turk with it to make sure he was no longer a part of this world. Satisfied he was dead, he hauled the corpse to its feet and lay it on a worktable, found a scalpel, and set to work. 

When he was finished, he dragged the now cloaked and shrouded form of a thing that had been human into the crypt located in the Mansion's depths. The loose, flowing cape he had clad the Turk in moved aside for a moment, and light gleamed on a brassy claw, where Vincent's left arm should be. After consigning his foe to whoever might come, he deposited the key to the vault in his safe, placed a few notes in strategic positions in the front foyer, and set to work, removing his equipment from his lab and piling loose-leaf binders filled with notes in the Professor's cramped handwriting into a few boxes. Satisfied that he had gotten everything, he called for a guard to carry his things away, and left Shin-Ra Mansion.

*****

Jenova watched all this with faint interest, slightly surprised by Hojo's initiative. She felt the miniscule pieces of herself placed into Vincent's body by the Professor become active, and she silenced them, telling them to wait until he was awakened. She then fell back into the abyss of sleep, waiting for her 'Son' to come and free her. And years passed.

Notes:

I know, this is a short chapter but there seems to be some cleavage lines in this story. I just find that parts seem to clump together and form chapters. Sorry!


	5. The Great Warrior

Author's Notes:

Yes, this one is horribly short but it has nothing to do with the next part. Trust me.

Besides, you like Hojo, don't you? Of course you don't! Only very sick and twisted people do. I knew one of them...but I won't go into that here.

__

"He was a walking mass of complexes."

Hojo studied the files of his son with interest, paying closest attention to Sephiroth's skill with the huge Masamune that he used as a weapon. A weapon! Most people kept a false one on the wall as a decorative device, and needed ten strong men to place it on the rack. But Sephiroth wielded the sword with ease, waving it about as though it were a pencil! Good Lord, what a warrior he had created! If Sephiroth was this good with the Masamune at age fourteen, imagine what power he would have as an adult...yes, Shin-Ra certainly had the General it needed...

Hojo felt a flash of fatherly pride, for did Sephiroth not owe his strength and very existence to him? If he had not been treated with Mako and Jenova, he would just be an ordinary boy...but with the enhancement, he was stronger, faster, more agile, and certainly had a greater amount of magical ability than other people. And the spells he knew! Most people had one or two Materia, a Cure usually, and perhaps a Fire or Bolt...but Sephiroth knew powerful Summon spells, like 'Leviathan' and 'Kjata'. He refused to use Materia like HP Up, claiming that they were unnecessary. Magic Materia were at his full command, and he was able to wring hidden power from his Contain and Barrier spells. All in all, Sephiroth certainly was worth his cost...

Hojo broke away from the reports, a strange smile twisting his face. What if - what if he gave his son the Black Materia? What if Sephiroth had the power to destroy the Planet? Would his child use the inner strengths that God had seen fit to give him? Hojo wished that he could carry out this experiment, but he knew that it was impossible, too costly. Although Hojo held no regard for anything or anyone else on the Planet, he still had no desire to destroy his only home...

Hojo reprimanded himself for such self-destructive thoughts. He had to concentrate on his current experiment. He pushed a tape of Sephiroth fighting a Roboguard in a training area into a VCR. He stared at the recorded motions of his son with pride, looking at his flowing silver hair and glowing eyes. Strange, that hair was...why did it grow in that fashion? Was it because of Jenova? Hojo had seen similar hair like tendrils growing on the Cetra's head...or what he supposed was her head, and knew that Sephiroth himself certainly didn't style it that way. He had seen the recordings of his son in his room, and knew that he had no concern for personal appearance, merely getting up, bathing, and dressing in the enveloping black cape and uniform of a Shin-Ra general. And the eyes...presumably the Mako was responsible for the green glow and the eerily beautiful shifting from blue to turquoise to green; he had seen it before in members of SOLDIER, but the cat-like pupils were beyond his reasoning. He guessed that they were a gift from Jenova. Exactly why Jenova would cause that, he had no idea, and he didn't know if she had eyes like that. If only she would open them, if she was alive! He _could _use a probe to open them, but he wasn't going to risk his precious specimen...

Hojo set down the reports, looking up at the clock. Six-fifteen...time for Sephiroth's 'medicine'. Most children were frightened by doctors with needles. In fact, Hojo, with his odd, shuffling, walk, and vulture-like posture, frightened most adults, even without the large needle he kept in his breast pocket for the terrifying effect it had on others. But Sephiroth had merely stared at him with intent solemnity. Always. Hojo twisted his mind, trying to figure that out. Now he remembered that it had seemed as though Sephiroth had been staring into his...his _soul_. No matter. Hojo left his Spartan office and went to the medical Wing.

Notes:

Short but to the point. Sephiroth is growing up and Jenova is conveniently able to fall asleep and miss boring bits. I wish *I* could fall asleep and miss boring bits...

Next: The introduction of Ifalnya!


	6. Buried in the Snow

Author's Notes:

A history lesson, in essence. Jenova decides to remove a threat.

__

"Ifalnya, tell me more about WEAPON."

Professor Gast looked into the cave with worry. He had been told by the villagers that an Ancient lived here, but the cave was obviously too small for a being of Jenova's size. Gast stepped into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Then he felt something sharp and pointy poking his neck.

"Who are you, intruder?" said a female voice to his left.

"Um. I'll tell you, if you don't stab me." The knife was removed, and Gast breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well?" the voice asked.

"I'm... a scientist in search of Cetra artifacts. The villagers in Icicle said that an Ancient lived here, and I wanted to see if it was true...and I wanted some artifacts, something to take back for study. We've already found one specimen of the Cetra, but we would like more data. My name is Gast." 

Gast waited for the voice to reply. It seemed to him that it was considering what he had said.

"You say you actually found one of the Cetra? But that's impossible!" 

The owner of the voice stepped into the light, and Gast gasped with awe. The inhabitant of the cave was a beautiful woman, with brown hair that cascaded to the floor, and large, expressive green eyes. She was wearing a red and orange dress under a Bandersnatch-fur cloak, and she carried a long and evil-looking knife. "I'm Ifalnya. I live here..." Ifalnya walked into the darkness and Gast heard the sounds of scraping, which were followed by light flooding the inside of the cave. Gast saw that Ifalnya had lit a lantern, and in its light he saw that the cave was small, with only the one chamber. A pile of logs stood at one wall, a curious structure of what appeared to be the massive rib bones of some creature hung with some cloth was at another, above a pile of furs that seemed to be a bed. Ifalnya walked to a depression in the stone floor and placed some of the logs therein, and then pulled a small green sphere from the hilt of her knife.

"Fire!" she said, and a small burst of flame shot out of her Materia and set the logs ablaze. She turned to the scientist. "Pull that fur over," pointing to a draped skin near the entrance of the cave, presumably to act as a door. Gast did as he was told. Ifalnya pulled some of the furs from the bed and dropped them near the fire, indicating to Gast that he should sit. He sat down on one of the furs as Ifalnya did the same.

"Now, what do you want to know of the Cetra? Sadly, I know but little, as _she _has seen to it that all but a small few of us survive..." Ifalnya looked up at Gast, noting his shocked expression. "What? You're surprised to find one of the Cetra living here? Or is it that I am one of them? What, were you expecting some betentacled monstrosity?" Then she saw Gast's horrified look.

"Yes. I was. You see, we have a frozen Cetra in a laboratory. She's about seven feet tall, is sort of conical-shaped, she has branch-like limbs, and is a bluish color with some sort of wings or something. She has what looks like hair growing over her forehead, or what we think is her forehead. I saw that this cave is too small for a being her size, but I came anyway..." he trailed off, looking at Ifalnya worriedly.

"Have you got a picture or something with you of this 'Ancient'? If you do, I would be greatly interested in this..." Ifalnya looked calm, but with a flash of empathy, Gast knew that she was absolutely terrified. He reached for his pack and produced an photograph of Jenova. Ifalnya took it and studied it with trembling hands.

"It is as I feared. _She _has awakened again. And now only I remain to combat her...I think the Planet may be doomed." Ifalnya looked at Gast calmly.

"What? How can we be endangered by a thing that's been asleep for thousands of years? How can Jenova harm us?" Gast looked at Ifalnya with apprehension.

"Jenova, you named her? How appropriate...that is what we named it so long ago...before your race evolved, in fact..." she stared at Gast, and then spoke again. "Many thousands of years ago, _thousands _of thousands of years ago, before any life existed of this Planet, we, the Cetra, came here. They arrived, and started a 'Planet-reading', that is, made contact with the Planet and learned what they could of it. They prospered, and started a great civilization. Then _she_ came. She rode down on a stone from the stars, and caused a great wound, and also killed many of our people. She was given a name among our people. _Jenova_. It meant 'Crisis from the Skies'... Jenova lured away a group of us, and won them over to her cause. She warped their minds, and finally...gave them the virus. It left them horribly mutated, and under her complete control. She started a great war, and there were many casualties among those remaining Cetra. Some of the survivors branched off and became the human race. The few remaining 'pure' Cetra combated Jenova until only she was left. She was locked into the ice near the wound she had inflicted upon the Planet. That is why there is snow at all times around the North Crater...so much Lifestream is gathered there to heal the wound. remainders of the war still remain...locked in the heart of the Planet, for example, are five great creatures called WEAPON...WEAPON is a defence mechanism of the Planet...it was never used, because the war was over by the time they were finished. But they are still sleeping, somewhere below us...the Planet keeps them around because Jenova is not gone...she's alive in a capsule and in the bodies of most of Shin-Ra's army. And there is an alarmingly high concentration in one person..." Ifalnya broke out of her little history lesson, and glanced at Gast.

"I...might know who that is...about fourteen years ago, my associate, Professor Hojo, treated his unborn son with Mako and Jenova cells. It was discovered that cells would create super-human strength...

The one who you sensed is probably receiving an injection right now. His name is...Sephiroth."

"A name of great significance. I believe Sephiroth was the name of some great warrior or forgotten god...And what weapon is young Sephiroth being trained with?" Ifalnya now looked at Gast with hope.

"It is a great sword...approximately six feet long, and very thin. It is almost like a katana, but much longer...it has seven Materia slots. It is called the Masamune."

"Ah, yes. Masamune... supposedly a Holy sword. It is said to be of incredible strength and power. The maker of such swords was a very powerful man. The blades he made are supposed to be very lucky. The Masamune is very old. It is very important that Sephiroth be allowed to keep it. You see, there was a great warrior in that war so long ago... many of those infected by Jenova fell beneath his blade. He was called the One-Winged Angel. Legend says he had a wing on his right shoulder. After the war he disappeared into the ice of the North...the North! Where was the blade found?" Ifalnya looked very expectant.

"I believe it was found encased in a block of Summon Materia...yes...the block was of tremendous size, but it was flawed, so as to be unusable. There were many cracks in it, and only a small fraction was good enough to carve and be used. I think it was called 'Alexander' or something. Supposed to be Holy, that Summon... but I ramble on. The sword was found when they put chisel to the block, to see if it was useable. Did the Holy element of the Materia permeate the sword?" Gast looked at the Materia in the hilt of Ifalnya's dagger.

"Aha! Large amounts of Lifestream can crystallize and form Materia. It is possible that the warrior was caught in a blast of raw Mako, and carried down to the core of the Planet. Then, millennia later, the sword was brought along in an uprising of Lifestream and frozen into the block when the liquid solidified. That would account for the disappearance of the One-Winged Angel and the finding of the sword." Ifalnya stood up. "Now, you should go back to wherever it is you have Jenova, and gather as many notes on her as you can. Then come back here. Try to get some information on Sephiroth and the Masamune too. Take as long as you like, as I'll need some time to talk to the Planet... Fate may smile on us yet!" Ifalnya then walked over to Gast and, to his great surprise, hugged him, and then handed him his pack.

"Um. Okay. I'll be back in a week or so. See you then! Goodbye!" Gast ran out of the cave as fast as he could, hoping that Ifalnya couldn't see how much he was blushing.

*****

Curses! The wretched Cetra was helping Gast! If Jenova read the scientist's mind well, then...he..._was in love_ with that damned Ifalnya! How could that Charm spell have worn off? Perhaps the Holy presence of the last remaining Cetra had diminished her power...

That, however, was of no consequence when compared to the danger she faced if Gast was going to take the notes on her...that _must_ be stopped! He was plotting the downfall of her and her precious 'son'! Jenova bent her great mind to the discrediting, imprisonment, or destruction of Professor Gast.

Notes: 

Now how on the Planet will Jenova get Gast out of the way? Keep reading!


	7. Sweet Dreams are Made of These...

Author's Notes:

Jenova deals with the thorn in her side.

__

"Estuans interius

Ira vehementi"

Sephiroth tossed in his bed, deep in some mysterious dream. Little known to him, his alien 'benefactor' had been sending him every dream he had ever had, filling his subconscious with thoughts of conquest and dominion. Tonight, Jenova had created an image of Sephiroth as her defender, her tool of terror and power. She had allowed Sephiroth to fill in the rest, and had come up with some rather interesting things. Currently, he was imagining himself in some misshapen, yet strangely ...perfect... form... Sephiroth's upper body, but with a few crucial differences. His right arm was instead a huge wing with brown, red, and dark blue membrane instead of feathers. His head and upper chest were backlit by two large interlinked golden rings, and his hair floated upward in a shimmering silver double topknot. Below his waist, however, all semblance of humanity ended. Here he had six wings covered in white feathers mixed with brilliant sapphire and yellow slowly undulated, keeping him aloft, and giving him an air of supreme grace and majesty. This strange dream-Sephiroth hovered against a gently swirling mass of amethyst and obsidian clouds, giving the impression that this being dwelt in some heavenly, otherworldly place. 

In his sleep, Sephiroth mumbled a name.

_Savior Sephiroth._

Once a thing is given a name, it comes into existence. Savior Sephiroth currently existed only in Sephiroth and Jenova's minds, but soon it would emerge and wreak its terrible havoc in the name of Jenova.

Sephiroth was chanting in his sleep. 

*****

Professor Gast tiptoed into the dark lab, trying not to attract any attention. He looked around, then went over to his desk and started searching for his notes. And couldn't find them.

"Looking for something?" said a familiar voice. Gast whirled around in surprise, and the lights flicked on, momentarily blinding him.

"I had a feeling you might come here for your notes."

Gast gasped with shock. How had Hojo, for the voice was undoubtedly his, known?

"How did I know? I just ... had a feeling." Hojo waved the notes enticingly. "Want them? Just try. They're no longer your property. You're being cut from the Project."

"But...why? I've done nothing!" Gast was indignant.

"That's just it. You've done nothing lately. Just hanging around up North, pretending to look for artifacts! You still have most of your ties with the Shin-Ra, but you're no longer a part of the Project." Hojo turned around. "You know, these notes really are quite interesting. I'm sure they'll prove useful. You, however, are not. You have fifteen minutes to clean out your desk. if you take any longer, then you'll be shot to shit. Any questions? No? Good."

Hojo turned and left. Gast started after him, but the sudden appearance of several members of SOLDIER forced him to change his mind. He started to pack up.

*****

How fascinating! The deviousness of her favorite pawn had no limits! Now the only one who could really do anything to stop her was exiled, free to consort that Cetra wench he had lately taken as a lover. The mysteries of human love were beyond Jenova, but the small being's desire burned with a brightness that disgusted her. Let him sit around in the North and plot against her. There was no danger from the Cetra, and soon she would be able to test the strength of the sword she had forged in Lucretia's womb. She was not sure that the sword would not break, but if it did...the humans would bury the pieces and she could start anew.

*****

The crypt beneath the mansion in Nibelheim resonated with the shrieks of a madman. A coffin rocked and tossed on its base as though it was possessed, and it a way it was. Inside the shaking casket, the tortured body of a former Turk writhed and twisted in a deep and unearthly sleep.

Suddenly, it was still. In the cold darkness of the coffin, a pair of deep red eyes opened. A thin mouth parted, revealing pointed teeth, and it screamed.

Above the crypt, in the open air outside the mansion, passersby crossed themselves with terror and made the sign of the evil eye. All day long, there had been a terrible banging and clattering. Now it was silent, but it was not destined to last. The still air above the town seemed to inhale with anticipation, and then a single word was screamed from the dank earth that sounded as though it had been emitted from the bleeding throat of Hell:

__

LUUUCCRETIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

*****

Jenova reeled with pleasure as the waves of the being Hojo had imprisoned in the crypt's internal agony washed over her in wave after wave of exquisite pain. It was...delicious. That was the only description she could think of. Yes. How it suited the delightful sensations she was receiving through those pieces of her inside it. She commanded her microscopic servants inside of Vincent's body to increase the being's torment.

Notes:

I don't know exactly why I put in that bit with Vincent but it seemed to fit somehow and suited my idea of Jenova being someone who appreciates the pain of others, sort of like Jabba the Hutt's torture droid, EV-9D9. 'You're a feisty little one, but you'll soon learn some respect. I have need for you on His Excellency's sail barge, and I think you'll fill in nicely.' Heehee.


	8. On a Dark and Stormy Night

Author's Notes:

Ah, the miracle of birth. With all its attendant messiness and so on. What goes before those 'Confidential' videos in Gast's house...

__

"Grrr! Edgar, you pinhead! Why do you have to live in the middle of nowhere?"

Gast held Ifalnya's hand, grimacing as she clenched it with amazing strength, in the midst of another contraction.

After he had been removed from the Project, Gast had moved to a large house in the northern town, and soon Ifalnya had moved in with him. None of the villagers knew where she had come from, assuming that she was an assistant from Shin-Ra. In fact, she had provided him with a great deal of information about Jenova, the Cetra, and the Planet's great defence system, WEAPON. Hah! Shin-Ra had been foolish to get rid of him! He knew things that Hojo would sell his own grandmother for, if he hadn't already! The young Sephiroth had confided a great many matters to him, things that Hojo would never find out! He kept the files containing these notes in a special drawer of his desk.

Ifalnya clenched his hand again, far harder this time.

"All right, once more, dear. Just once more." The nurse was keeping an eye on the baby's progress, and attempting to soothe Ifalnya at the same time.

Ifalnya moaned and squeezed Gast's hand so hard that he imagined that he could hear the crackle of small bones shattering. He almost screamed, but was distracted by the squeal from the other end of the bed as the doctor held up the child.

"Professor Gast, Mrs. Gast, you have a healthy daughter!"

"Oh...oh, lemme hold her....let me hold her!" Ifalnya held out her arms for the baby.

"Oh, she's so perfect..." Gast was filled with a sense of pride, that he was the father of one of the two surviving Ancients. he watched as Ifalnya cuddled her child.

"And the name...she needs a beautiful name. She will be beautiful..."

"Hmmm. How about Yolanda?" Gast ducked as Ifalnya aimed a punch at him. "Just kidding! How about...Aeris? That sounds nice."

"Aeris...yes..."she looked down at the now sleeping child. "Aeris...hello, Aeris... yeah. I like it..."

"Aeris it is, then. Nurse? Could you take her to get washed up or for her shots or whatever?"

The nurse looked at him with worry. "Shots? She's a _human_, not an animal. We examine her for illness."

"Oh. Well, do that, then. I don't want my precious Aeris getting sick or anything..." He watched as the woman took his daughter away.

*****

So, now there was another Cetra to contend with...but there was nothing to worry about. This...girl, she could sense it, even at this great distance, would not be capable of doing anything to hurt Jenova for years, yet. But Gast had been allowed to do as he liked for too long, now. She decided that he should be put out of the way, and that Ifalnya or whatever her name was, and the child should be imprisoned. Then they could live out the rest of their days in captivity, prisoners of Shin-Ra.

If Jenova had been capable of laughter, she would have indulged herself in a bout of insane giggles, but as such, she could merely radiate happiness. The waves of amusement emanating from her momentarily stopped Vincent Valentine's nightmares, caused Sephiroth and countless members of SOLDIER a small lapse of confusion, and even caused Professor Hojo to suddenly have a rare grin, terrifying the person he was treating at the moment. Then she stopped her strange equivalent of laughing, thinking for a moment of how to achieve her control over those last miserable remnants.

*****

Near the small town of Nibelheim, in a little hospital, a birth that would shake the world in a few years was going on.

At the head of the bed, a clipboard shows the mother's statistics, but all that can be seen of the information is one word, a last name.

Strife.

*****

Hojo grumbled to himself about the cold, and shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his heaviest winter coat. 

"Damn! Gast, you fool, why do you have to live in the middle of nowhere?"

"What's that, Sir?" One of the two fighters looked at Hojo inquisitively.

"Nothing..."

The soldier returned to whatever thoughts he had been having, and Hojo did as well. Soon the Shin-Ra helicopter landed outside the small town of Icicle, and disgorged the three people it had been carrying. The pilot closed the door so quickly, not wanting to let the freezing air of the North Continent into the cabin. One of the soldiers looked back at the chopper, but it was lost in a gust of snow.

Once they arrived outside what seemed to be Gast's house, Hojo turned to the guards.

"Wait here, till I call you on the radio."

"Sir, yes, Sir!"

Hojo quietly walked up the steps to the door, then waited until the wind picked up, with an optimum amount of snow. He liked to use dramatic effect, whenever possible. Once an icy gust that satisfied him kicked up, he slammed his foot into the door, throwing it open and stunning the inhabitants. The look on Gast's face would keep Hojo warm on cold nights, a rictus of horror.

"Hojo, what are you doing here?"

"Simple, Gast. I'm here to sever all your ties with Shin-Ra and take your...'specimen'..."

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that." Gast made a slight movement, probably for a weapon of some sort. Hojo called the guards. They burst in, and Gast stopped his movement.

"Hmmm, what an odd looking camera. Guard, destroy it!" The man turned and aimed his rifle at the camera, and unleashed a short and destructive blast. The recording device fell to the wooden floor with a crash.

"And now, if you'll surrender your wife and child..."

"No! No, you won't!"

"Oh, won't I? Guard?"

The other guard let loose a salvo of bullets. Gast fell to the floor, a large and bloody hole in his chest. The woman knelt to the floor.

"Honey? No!"

Hojo allowed himself a slight smile. "And now, if you'll come with me...."

"Scum. You make me sick." The woman looked at Hojo with unbridled hate, but he saw that she shrugged on a coat, retrieved her child and got her into a jacket, and followed the guards. Hojo quickly rifled through the drawers of Gast's desk, and used his pistol, the same one he had killed Vincent with, to blow the lock off one of them, exposing the treasure trove of notes hidden within. He snatched them up and flipped through them, eyes greedily absorbing information.

"What's this? Jenova...WEAPON?" Thank you, Professor Gast..." He let loose a short chuckle. Then he looked around at the pile of cooling meat on the floor, and left.

Through it all, the microphone in the smashed remains of the camera whirred away, silently filing away the noises of the scuffle.

*****

Ifalnya and the infant Aeris were confined in a large cell, with large viewing windows. Periodically, Hojo would come into sight at one of the windows, and appear to say something to an orderly, and soon she would be forced to answer more questions about the Cetra, Jenova, the Planet, and WEAPON. Ifalnya thought about suicide, but then Aeris would be left to the care of those Shin-Ra scientists, and she didn't like to even think about what would happen to her daughter at their evil hands. Ifalnya languished in the cell for three years, Aeris' rapid growth being the only thing that kept her going.

Just before Aeris' fourth birthday, a new and sympathetic doctor 'accidentally' left the door to the cell open, and Ifalnya and Aeris made their escape. In their terrified flight from Shin-Ra Tower, Ifalnya was wounded by a pack of guard beasts, and she barely made it on the train to the slums, where she knew the Shin-Ra would never find her. Once she dragged herself off the train, she collapsed, but managed to tell the one person who aided her to keep Aeris safe.

In Elmyra Gainsborough's arms, Ifalnya died.

*****

Great cables flailed wildly, the immense pressure of the containing fluid spraying uncontrollably, damaging vital systems, propelling the tubes that kept her alive.

The Crisis from the Skies was _angry_. So enraged that she cared not about the multimillion gil cost of the systems that were destroyed by her anger, not caring about the slowly leaking sustaining liquid, not caring that the incredible pressure from one of the tubes cut a luckless scientist in half. That damn Cetra had escaped, was free from the control of her puppets!

Her anger crystallized as she saw that Ifalnya had been mortally wounded, the died, and then Jenova actually grinned, a tiny, nearly invisible twist of her lips, putting one of the Shin-Ra workmen who came to repair the damage to think of an ancient painting he had once seen in a museum, called the Mona Lisa, a relic from the Planet's ancient past.

Jenova used her great influence to erase the memories of those who had seen her enraged destruction, altered their memories, putting off the devastation as a mechanical failure.

The near invisible smile stayed frozen on Jenova's features for many, many years.

*****

In a secret laboratory at the top of Shin-Ra Tower, a similar mind was rife with a similar anger.

"She _WHAT?_" Hojo screamed at the luckless subordinate who had been sent with the information the Cetra had escaped.

"Sir, they...they...g-got out, s-someone l-l-left the...the door open..." The scientist cringed. Hojo's tantrums were legendary. There were rumors that once he had actually told the President 'No' in an argument. If they were true, then Hojo was obviously valuable, or he would be dead.

"Well, then. I suggest that you do something to find them. " Hojo spoke in a venomously sweet voice. "Send in the Turks. They'll get them."

"Uh, Sir...you, you n-need President Shin-Ra's authorization..." The pathetic man stared at his feet. He felt that he shouldn't have said that.

"I don't give a flying fuck about the President's authorization! Now you go and find Tseng and make sure he gets that band of assholes searching! Do you hear me, you wretched little blob of swallow's shit?" Hojo's face was turning an interesting shade of purple.

"Y-yes, Sir! Right away, Sir!" He scuttled off to find the leader of the Turks.

Hojo went off to find who was responsible for the breach in security that had allowed the Ancients to escape. He wasn't sure what he would do to the offender, but he imagined it could involve hot oil and red-hot handcuffs somewhere. He grinned. Someone would pay, and he would have considerable fun making them do so.

Notes:

Personally I'm very satisfied with the way I did Hojo at this part, it seems to capture his eccentricity and turns him into a nice villain. Incidentally, that last part was inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I highly recommend them. They're funny.

Also, I couldn't resist that part with Jenova's smile. That smile has bugged me since I first saw it and now I had a chance to explain it as well as mesh our world and the Planet together more tightly then they already are...just go to Bone Village and look at the fighter jet's ruins...see? I think that the Planet is ours in the very distant future...interesting.

Next: The construction of the Sister Ray!


	9. Flowers Blooming in the Church

Author's Notes:

Aeris is found out. Scarlet has an interesting proposition. Gods, I hate Scarlet....

"_But remember sir...you must call it the Sister Ray!"_

Tseng silently watched the young girl, glad that he had found her at last. The search had been long and hard, but Sector Five had yielded results. The girl who had escaped from Shin-Ra Tower had wandered into the Sector Five slums, where Tseng and the Turks had kept a watch for the girl Hojo wanted.

All throughout Midgar, people had been sent to find her, and here she was, walking into the crumbling old church of an ancient and nearly forgotten religion. Tseng cared not for the decaying building, or for the Jesus-man, the mythological figure to whom it had been built in centuries past.

He stared at her, wondering what was so important about this girl who could be no more then seven.

She went into the church, and Tseng followed in the shadows. She opened to door, and he slipped inside just after her. Looking around him, he gasped, for the entire building was bathed with streams of sunlight. Sunlight, here under the Plate!

But there was more here. In a large hole in the floorboards, the earth was bared. Tseng knew that the soil of the slums was too poisoned to support any kind of life, but a small plant grew out of it, as if it was defying all that Shin-Ra had done to the Planet.

She walked over to the plant and watered it using a bucket standing near the shattered altar. Then something almost as odd happened, the plant did not die at the contact with the water. Everyone knew that the water in the slums had to go through extensive purification before it was safe to use. But the girl, finished watering her plant, lifted the bucket to her lips and drank. Tseng nearly gasped. He watched as she tended her plant, and then followed her home, noting where she lived.

*****

The view from the top floor was amazing, something that would probably make poets burst forth into verse. President Shin-Ra did not care for poets. Nor did he care for verse. President Shin-Ra only cared about money. That he had to tread on many fingers on his path to being the most powerful man on the Planet was of no matter to him. And soon he was about to tread on a few more fingers. He stared out the window reflectively.

"What do you think of it, Mr. President?" A tall, thin woman in a clingy red dress, her bleach-blonde hair piled around her head, looked at Shin-Ra inquisitively. The President returned his glance to a sheaf of blueprints on his huge desk. Just a tiny fraction of what was already on it, but what the blueprints contained would help secure his power.

"What did you call it, Scarlet? A...Sister Ray, wasn't it, dear?"

"Yes, Mr. President. The Sister Ray. A reminder to those slanty-eyed Wutese." The President winced at Scarlet's use of 'slanty-eyed'. Political correctness was important if you wanted to have a cohesive empire. He made a mental note to have the Turks sweep the room for bugs. If the press heard that, they would have a field day.

"Uh-huh. And how will this thing be powered? Where will we place it?" He took a deep puff of his cigar and tapped it out onto an ashtray overflowing with cinders.

"Heidegger suggested placing it near Rocket Town, but I think it might be more effective at Junon. After all, our main military force is stationed there, and we could build it its own Reactor under the water. Then those damn AVALANCHE fools won't suffer heart attacks...that's a loss, I assure you, sir."

"Yes...good idea, Scarlet. Yes, I think Junon will do nicely. And AVALANCHE...have SOLDIER try and find some of them...a public execution or two will keep them in line for a while..."

Scarlet perked up. She loved doing the public executions. Her favorite tactic was to gas the criminal with an extremely toxic substance that caused insanity and then death. Shin-Ra had seen the corpses. They were not pleasant to look upon, although the protests against his Mako Reactors were silenced for a short while, and then started up louder than before. Shin-Ra knew it was only a matter of time before those eco-terrorists did something severe, and hoped he could quell their screaming about how he was killing the Planet. Yes, it was only a matter of time...

Notes:

How nasty can Scarlet be? The racism fits her...I liked the way she whacks Tifa on Disc Two, but she's rather superficial except as mobile furniture...she's not a very good weapons designer, is she? Although the Sister ray was useful, none of her other creations were...the proud Clod was a disgrace! How can something defeat WEAPON if it can be destroyed by some rag-tag rebels?

Anyway, I'm pleased with Shin-Ra, I was in full swing that day and I think that this section is one of my best pieces of work. If they ever make a FFVII movie, if they did it with real people, the best person to do Shin-Ra would be the father on 'Titus'. He looks like the president and the character has the same vicious attitude......


	10. A Trip to the Medical

Author's Notes:

Sephiroth has lines! Yes yes! And Hojo appears again!

__

"Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me." 

Sephiroth strode through the cold halls of Shin-Ra Tower, scattering workers and administrators in his path like clouds of insects. His long black trenchcoat flapped behind him, giving the effect of some dark angel. Silver hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights. The Masamune hung on his side, nearly giving nervous employees a whack on the leg...an extremely deadly whack.

He was going to the Medical floor. Hojo had sent a message that Sephiroth was to report there at noon. The warrior glanced at a nearby clock as he walked through a corridor, and saw that it was ten to twelve. Early, as usual, he turned down the corner that led to the elevator for the Medical, stepped inside, and pressed the button for the correct floor, pointedly ignoring the people cowering at the back of the conveyance like frightened Chocobo hatchlings. _Fools. I could decapitate them before they even saw me draw my sword. _A grin flickered across his face, almost too fast to see. Only twenty and he could likely kill every member of SOLDIER without a scratch. Not as though he would ever have to fight SOLDIER, but judging how things were going with the Wutese, he'd have to fight the equivalent soon enough. _I'll bet that the Wutese are better trained than Heidegger's rabble..._

The elevator let out a soft 'ding' and the doors slid open, revealing the waiting room for Hojo's laboratory. Sephiroth stepped out of the elevator, went to the middle of the room, and sat down in one of the plastic chairs that were scattered in the room. They were of the sort that appeared to be amazingly comfortable until you'd sat in them for a few minutes. Sephiroth was heedless of the discomfort. He looked up at the clock, and stood up, preparing for the nightmare that was Hojo's playpen. The twisted scientist had many different 'experiments' going on at a time. His current favorite was some hideous synthesis of man and beast with tentacles coming out of various parts of its body. He saw that there were tentacles protruding from its eye sockets. _Twitching _tentacles. He shuddered.

Hojo was seated at a microscope, his body contorted into the bizarre position dictated by one of those Wutese chairs with no back that made you kneel. He was mumbling to himself. Sephiroth coughed.

"Eh? What? Oh, it's you. Well, my boy, today is, I believe, a very special day for you. Because, you see, you no longer need to be given that medicine I've been giving you all these years. You're cured."

_So the old fool still thinks that I think I'm sick....what stupidity. What does he think I am, some kind of idiot?_

Hojo went over to a locked cabinet, opened it using a key he produced from the recesses of his labcoat, and extracted a syringe and a vial of a luminescent green fluid.

"And this, my lad, is the final injection you'll need. I guess I won't be seeing you anymore. Too bad."

Sephiroth realised that Hojo was attempting to make a joke. He laughed, half-heartedly. It was best not to mess around with this madman.

"Now, if you'll just take off that shoulder plate, and roll up that sleeve..." Sephiroth complied, and Hojo swiped the fighter's arm with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. In went the needle, three inches of glittering steel topped by a tube filled with that mysterious concoction Hojo had always been filling him with. For a moment Sephiroth wondered just what the substance _was_, it smelled terrible and had the effect upon the sinuses of a large amount of breath mints eaten at once. He remembered that SOLDIER was treating the grunts to something that had actually been cooked at dinner tonight. Probably roast turkey or something....he mentally cursed. He wouldn't be able to taste anything until about midnight because of the stench of the 'medicine'. Ah, well. At least it was real food of sorts.

Hojo finished depressing the plunger on the syringe and removed it, swiping away the tiny bead of blood that rose on Sephiroth's arm with yet another cotton ball, and put a Band-Aid on the pinprick. Sephiroth stared at it for a second. It was adorned with little yellow Chocobos. Hojo noticed his look.

"Ah, yes, the noble Chocobo...they run at amazing speed and shit like nobody's business. If you ever get a job out of SOLDIER, I highly recommend against mucking out Chocobo stables. You see, we haven't got any normal-colored bandages and I have to use ones from the Children's Medical until we get a new shipment. It's not as though it matters. Now run along."

Sephiroth left the lab, averting his eyes from the thing with the tentacles and trying to escape the horrible scent that the room was always filled with...evidently an effect of the disinfectant the place probably had to be swilled with after Hojo had finished with his 'playthings'. 

Notes:

I just couldn't do Hojo like he was when Aeris and Ifalnya escaped, it just wouldn't come. Sorry.

But, I'm happy with Sephiroth and they way he thinks...like he does in that famous FMV...you know, about the 'worthless creatures'. Delicious!


	11. Arx Imbrium, Citadel of Dreams, Place wh...

*****

"So, you hoping to get into SOLDIER?" The kid with the wild yellow hair glanced up at his interrogator. 

"Yeah...how `bout you?" He evaluated the person. Black hair done to look like a hedgehog or something, blue eyes, and a friendly grin. Perhaps this guy was actually trying to be nice. 

"Unh-huh. I'm gonna be First Class! ... I think you're supposed to say that or something...everybody expects it on this thing..." 

`This thing' was a large bus, full of anxious young men and women eager to prove their worth and become part of Shin-Ra's elite fighting force. Many of the hopefuls were busily reading _Heidegger's Guide to Hand-To-Hand Combat_. 

"So...what's yer name?" The kid with the black hair looked at him again. 

"Cloud...and you?" 

"Zack. Nice ta meet ya." Zack held out his hand. Cloud solemnly shook it. Seeing the expression on Cloud's face as he did so, Zack broke down into helpless giggling. 

"Wha...what do ya look so damn _serious_ for? Jeez, you'd think that you were shaking Sephiroth's hand, fer God's sake..." Zack soon settled down. 

"So, where are you from?" 

"Nibelheim." 

"I'm from Gongaga...it's not as nice as Nibelheim. I was there once. Is there a reason why there's a truck in the gates?" 

"I really don't know. It's been there as long as I can remember...it's the only truck in town. The people use Chocobos there...when were you there?" _I'm starting to like this guy..._

"A few years ago. Dad managed to save up enough from his job at the Reactor to buy us a vacation. All he did was complain about how expensive it was. It was fun though. We got to go to Rocket Town and see the spaceship. It was supposed to take off and fly to another Planet or something but it just went up a bit and then went back down. Then it started to fall over." 

"Wow. Did it hit anyone?" 

"Nah. One of those support things kept it from hitting the ground. I think it's still like that." 

"Wonder why they didn't try and fix it or anything..." 

Zack nodded. "Dad said that the President was spending the money on other stuff. Some guy who lived there was really pissed about it. I saw him run up and whack this fat guy in a suit right on the nose. Funniest thing I ever saw. The fat guy went `Oof!' and then started bouncing around going `Hey-hey!'. It was weird." 

Cloud absently looked out the window. "Hey, look! We're almost at Midgar!" All the others on the bus took notice of this and started staring at the impressive city. 

"Hey, look, there's Shin-Ra Tower...and there's all the Mako Reactors and stuff..." Zack had his nose plastered to the scratched plastic window. He sneezed. "Gods! What's that smell?" Cloud sniffed the air experimentally. 

"That's the smell of pure liquid Mako. You get that a lot back home because the Nibel Mountains are Mako-rich. But...it smells like...I don't know, smog, I guess." 

Zack looked at Cloud with respect. "You lived with that stench every day? Wow. I'm impressed." 

"Hunh. You get used to it. There are things that smell worse than Mako. Once this dragon came to the village and took a huge -" Cloud was interrupted by the bus coming to an abrupt halt. They were near the parade ground in front of Shin-Ra Tower. Lights slid up and down its shiny surface. The turquoise glow from the eight Mako reactors gave the sky an unhealthy pallor. To most of the citizens of Midgar, it was just a building where the President lived. 

To Cloud, it looked like a castle out of a fairy tale, full of hope and dreams. 

"Holy crap! Look! Hey, he's right over there!" Zack stood up and was waving at someone on the parade square. 

"Who're you looking at?" 

"It's _Sephiroth!!_" 

At the mention of the legendary warrior's name, all the boys on the bus leaned over to view the General of Shin-Ra's massive military branch. 

He was tall. He was dark. He was handsome. But he also had an air of superiority, as though it was an insult to him that you were on the same continent as him. His long silver hair billowed in a faint breeze that seemed to have been created for this exact moment. His glowing green eyes were visible even at this distance. His black trenchcoat flickered about his legs, clinging to his knee-high boots. 

The sun came out for a moment, glinted off the long, deadly, and coldly beautiful blade slung as his side. His hair was transformed into a glittering curtain of starlight. 

Sephiroth. The man who would train them and lead them into battle. No behind-the-battle-lines General, he was renowned for ignoring the danger posed by his enemies and would dash into the fray, his sword darkened by the blood of his luckless opponents, trailing a thin stream of gore behind it as he prepared for another slash. 

Sephiroth. The man who was always talked about in the newspapers, who was the subject of whispered rumor. Tales that his mother was an alien, words that President Shin-Ra was his father. He had been born in a test tube, it was said, and had begun training with the enormous Masamune at the age of eight, and had killed his first man at the tender age of five with his bare hands. 

All this and more was whispered in rumor, but there was never evidence to back it up. Shin-Ra never bothered trying to suppress the rumors. Perhaps it was because the truth was more terrifying than fiction. Nobody would ever be sure of the truth of these matters but for Sephiroth's creators... 

The doors of the bus opened and disgorged its youthful contents. Would-be warriors spilled onto the concrete surface of the square, hauling behind large cases of clothes and other articles. 

A tall, fat man in a green suit waddled into view. He had short black hair and a full beard that was smooth and glossy, reaching down to the middle of his enormous paunch. His golden epaulets sparked in the sunlight. A huge array of military honours adorned the breast of his jacket. A long, ugly scar ran across his face, narrowly missing his right eye. He stepped to what was essentially the front of these new recruits, hauled himself up to his full height, and bellowed, "FALL INTO LINE, YOU WORTHLESS SCUM!!" 

The newcomers scurried into some semblance of order, standing as straight as they could, dropping luggage in their haste to appear presentable. 

"That's better! Now, you worm-ridden lot have been SPECIALLY chosen by the commanders of SOLDIER to join that fighting force's elite ranks! From this day on, you are no longer ordinary human beings! You will be subjected to the most horrible of treatments to turn you into vicious, fearless killing machines! You will give UTMOST respect to your commanding officers, and most of all, to me, the President, and THAT MAN over THERE!" `THAT MAN over THERE' was, apparently, Sephiroth. The large man continued at the recruits. 

"I am Heidegger, and I am in charge of SOLDIER, the Turks, and, regrettably, you filthy lot! However, with time, I will-" 

Heidegger was interrupted mid-rant when Sephiroth sauntered over, a look of annoyance on the angelic face. He picked up the pace as he got closer, and, running a gloved hand through his hair, stopped in front of Heidegger, whom he proceeded to chastise. 

"Heidegger! What are you doing?" 

"Ah, Sephiroth sir! Look, our new recruits are in! Miserable, lot, I'm afraid, but I think I can do something with them." 

"No. You won't. In fact, the President himself has ordered that I'm to take care of this batch. Go back to your office, Heidegger. You're beginning to annoy me." 

Heidegger opened his mouth to protest, but evidently thought better of it. He elected to take the fastest route out of the parade square, looking back every few steps, as if to ensure that the General wasn't trailing him. He quickly disappeared. 

Sephiroth watched the man leave, wearing a sardonic grin all the while. Heidegger was far too pompous for his liking, and he took every chance he had to pull rank on him. Brushing a strand of hair from his eyes, he looked over his new charges. 

"Hi. I'm Sephiroth. Some of you may have heard of me from the news, and I can tell you that most of the things people say about me aren't true. Most of them...For instance, my eyes really are this color and it's not from contacts or Mako. Once you've had your Mako treatments, yours will be like that too, but they'll be the same color as your eyes now. It's just that they'll be more...well, luminous. It's good for seeing things in the dark. Second, this is actually my real hair. I've wondered about it too. And yes, it does grow like this naturally. No gel, no hairspray. Observe." Sephiroth grabbed one of his bangs and twisted it around his finger, shook it a few times, and let go. It sprung back into place with a barely audible _boing_. 

"Third, what they say about my sword _is_ true. If you touch it, you die. Nobody's figured that part out yet. I strongly recommend you _not_ try it for yourself. Now, I'm supposed to get to know you all, so I'll start with..." He looked the band of youngsters over. "I know, everyone hates this part, so I'll be quick, because I have to. It's in the rules. I'll start with...you," pointing at Cloud. 

"What's your name?" 

"Ummm...Cloud Strife, sir..." Cloud swallowed nervously. 

"And where are you from, Cloud?" 

"From...Nibelheim, sir." Mentally, Cloud swore. He could feel his stomach turning flip-flops. 

"That's a nice place...it smells sort of bad, of course, but -" Sephiroth was interrupted when Cloud lost control of his stomach, doubled over, and spewed his lunch onto Sephiroth's boots, which had formerly been polished to a mirror-like sheen. The boy turned red, then white, and stared at what his treacherous stomach had done to him. He would be kicked out, he would be banished, he would be executed for soiling Sephiroth's boots...any minute now, Sephiroth was going to draw his sword and decapitate him or run him through! He would let out an insane laugh as Cloud's blood stained the parade square... 

"Ha ha ha!" Cloud tensed. _Here it comes now..._He heard a thump in front of him. The sheath for the gigantic sword falling to the ground, perhaps. 

After waiting for about ten seconds, Cloud dared to look up, and saw that Sephiroth was on his back, giggling hysterically. The recruits looked on uneasily. The General gained control of himself and stood back up, occasionally emitting another peal of laughter. He finally settled down, and squatted in front of the still-hunched Cloud, and lifted up the boy's head. 

"Are you okay?" 

"Uhhh...sorry sir! Motion sickness! Not my fault! I -" 

"Don't worry about it. They're just boots. I know how it is. A long, bumpy bus ride, combined with the thrill of meeting the great Sephiroth. It's okay. Nothing bad will happed to you. New boots can be obtained!" Sephiroth helped Cloud to his feet. 

"Yes...sir..." 

"Cheer up! I'll show you to the Medical, and we'll see if they have anything to help this motion sickness of yours, alright?" 

*****

The chamber was invisible in the near darkness, and she could only see what she had seen for decades: the walls of her capsule and a few tubes, illuminated by the soft glow of the monitoring instruments and the cool blue radiance of the sustaining fluid. She knew every scratch in the glass in front of her, every screen, knew what times the fluid would be changed and when they would come for new studies or more samples. With a sudden jolt, she realised that she enjoyed being in the `captivity' of the humans. Enjoyed! The thought amazed her. That she, Jenova, the most powerful being on the Planet, should enjoy being under the dominion of petty, puny things! 

She settled down, and ran through her plans once again. She had long ago come up with a delightful stratagem that involved Sephiroth slaying his creators and coming to free her, when she and him would engage in an orgy of killing and corruption, Sephiroth ending the lives of the humans, Jenova using her magic and horrific abilities to re-animate the dead and infect them with her being. She savoured the knowledge of what that last Cetra's expression would be when Jenova revealed herself in her true form, and felt the hideous draining of her mind and soul into nothingness. 

Abruptly, she wondered if there were any more of her kind among the stars and Planets, bending their life-forms to their wills and spreading the race. Was she the only one? Was she some sort of anomaly? A dark, cold wire of loneliness twisted through her psyche. Surely, she was not the only one...otherwise, there would have been no way she would have come along. Still, vague thoughts lurked on the edges of her consciousness. How did she come along? Had she had...parents? If so, what had happened to them? What were the ways of her people? Were they social, or did they abandon their mates and children? Did they even have mates and children? Did they have any kind of culture or society? 

Such questions could not be solved at the moment, and were self-destructive, anyway. She removed herself from that line of thought and directed here will towards Sephiroth. When she had to leave his mind, for any reason, he soon reverted to his natural personality and nature, and she knew that such changes would draw unwanted notice. 

Sephiroth _had_ reverted to his normal state, so she re-applied her dominance and his good nature went dormant again. Normally she did checks every day, but she had been busy with her inner thoughts, and lost track of time. She felt the subconscious loneliness he had been feeling subside at her touch. 

She rode, unnoticed, in Sephiroth's mind, looking out of his eyes, hearing with his ears, and feeling what he touched.


	12. Dark Dances and Feral Smiles

Author's Notes: I'm SOOOO sorry for not updating this poor thing sooner, but it's difficult when inspiration dies, isn't it? It took me months to get past the first...section below, and when I started with Aeris, things started to flow nicely. Anyway, enjoy it, because I rather think there's some good stuff here, especially the part with Hojo, which I am quite proud of :) 

Legal stuff as always, which I don't think Square would bother with now, since they've apparently decided to make silly FF X with TALKING characters, lah-dee-DAH! As if FFVIII wasn't enough of an abortion....

Life, Cloud reflected, was very different in Midgar. Lights were on all night, streetlights, shops, and most of all, the eternally flickering green radiance of the eight Mako Reactors, bursting forth from the top vents with a constant hissing that was audible everywhere, light that poisoned the air but was ethereally beautiful nonetheless. He had been in the city for a month, living with the other recruits in a large barracks, and training in the vast basements of the Tower. He was beginning to use the massive sword used by SOLDIER easily and was proficient in the use of the required Materia. He wasn't the worst one of the lot, either. Of course, there were those that were better than him, but Cloud thought that he was fairly good.

Every day, Sephiroth led them in physical training, running laps, swimming, gymnastics, and in the fine art of military command.

The requirements for SOLDIER were high. Those who failed the final tests were admitted into the higher ranks of the general army, while those who passed underwent the horrific Mako treatments and were injected with the secret chemical that enhanced strength and mind.

Not all survived the Mako showers and immersions. Those whose bodies lived but whose minds did not were given mercy, although there were whispers late at night that the failures were used in scientific experiments or moved to the areas within the Reactors to guard sensitive areas where the effects of raw Mako would kill a human.

To be in SOLDIER you had to be the best of the best. Well, close to it, at least. Everyone knew that Sephiroth was the best SOLDIER that there would ever be.

Zack and Cloud had become inseparable, best of friends, and tonight they were going out on the town, to have a small sip of the cup of life that was, in Midgar, overflowing. Cloud was never quite sure of where they would go, and neither was Zack, but they always had a great time. The plan tonight was to go out to one of the many underground concerts that were regularly held in the Sector Three slums. Some dark and Goth band, Cloud thought, Satan's Angels, Blackened Wings, something along that vein. He didn't always enjoy the music they played at that sort of gathering, and he knew that Zack didn't always, either. In fact, he knew that Zack had a very secret taste for a kind of folk-dance music that originated from the Cosmo region, but it seemed that Zack was able to delight in different genres of music, and so Cloud would make an effort to enjoy himself this evening.

*****

Aeris turned the corner and entered the sunny lawn around her house. She smiled. It was such a mystery, that sunlight. Mother had told her that is had slowly appeared the day she had brought Aeris home. Almost, she had said, as though the sky was welcoming her, although Aeris privately thought that there were some big, but unnoticed, holes in the Plate above that let the sunlight through. The waterfalls had always been there, but the day that Aeris had arrived they began to flow with clean water instead of the waste and filth that they had spewed earlier. She had no secret explanation for _that_.

The bright patches of flowers made the place absolutely beautiful. Aeris liked Midgar, since it was all she had ever known, although she couldn't remember anything from before she was three or so.

She noticed that there was no smoke coming from the chimney. Mom wasn't home, then. Oh well. She reached into her cleavage and drew out the key. She didn't really like keeping it there, but it was the only place she could make sure it was safe, and it certainly couldn't be stolen without her notice.

In Aeris went, and clumped up the stairs. Mom always yelled at her when she did it, and that was why she did so whenever she had the house to herself, and why she wore such enormous boots. Some of her friends referred to them as 'shit-kickers', a term she privately agreed with, although if Mom ever heard what her friends said she'd have a fit.

She went into her room and laid her empty basket on the bed, then reached under it and pulled out the suitcase where she kept her clothes. She was going out tonight. Aeris laid out the outfit she would wear tonight, and then grabbed a towel from the linen closet and thumped down the stairs and outside to the big waterfall that poured through a grille into the sewers, dragged some sheets of corrugated tin over, and rigged up the enclosure that they used as a shower stall. She sang a sweet melody as she stepped under the torrent of clean water and shook out her hair.

She came back in, dripping wet and barefoot, and dashed across the carpet, up the stairs, and into her bedroom where she dried off and dressed in tonight's ensemble.

Elmyra would never recognize her in this outfit. For one thing, it was black. Black was eminently suited to her plans tonight. First was the dress. It was a delicate confection of spiderweb lace, the bottom half shredded with a razor she had found in the junk heap in Sector Six. Then there was the big silver necklace. It was a pentacle, and she was proud of it. It had taken a week's worth of flowers to buy that necklace. She had a long vest made of worn black denim, and she shrugged into it. She automatically fixed her hair, but tied it with satin ribbons of deepest crimson. Then she reached far behind the bed, wriggled her arm around, cursing a bit, and cringing once at the touch of a cobweb, then finally extracting a viciously spiked, cruelly bladed, and generally _evil_-looking staff, into which she slotted her three precious Materia. With the insertion of the last, the weapon acquired a faint emerald glow, and emitted a fain hum that was almost inaudible. She had asked people about it, but no-one had ever said that they noticed such a thing. Probably, Aeris had decided, it was because she was..._different_. Exactly how, she had never quite been able to figure out, but from what Mother had told her, she wasn't quite completely _different_. But even so, it was something she knew that she wasn't supposed to talk about, especially to Tseng.

Tseng was very nice, but he worked for Shin-Ra, and what Shin-Ra wanted, besides Mako and money, was Aeris Gainsborough, which Tseng had hinted at ever-so-delicately over steaming cups of green tea in the café in Wall Market. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get her to go topside with him, he had gradually, and gracefully, made less frequent visits, although she'd seen him lurking around in the shadows every once in a while. Occasionally she wondered just what he'd wanted her for, or, more truthfully, what Shin-Ra wanted her for. But it was best not to wonder about such things. Otherwise you might get vanished by the Turks, or something. People under the Plate noticed things like that. That the local drunk who'd ranted that Shin-Ra was working under the control of an alien from outer space, that the bag lady who'd insisted that SOLDIER wasn't quite human (_different_ like Aeris, but a different kind of _different_), that the weird old man who'd mumbled treason and sedition into a folded-up newspaper had suddenly gone away.

Aeris opened the drawer of her desk and pulled out a small bottle of mascara and a compact. Setting the compact so that she could see herself in its mirror, she carefully applied a touch of mascara, pale foundation, and liberal amounts of dark eyeshadow, and finally took out a tube of lipstick and gave her full lips a redness that was almost black, so rich was its colour.

Perfect.

She left a note for Mother, telling her not to wait up, and let herself out, then took the back routes to Sector Three, to the almost-hidden bar, Opaline Dream.

It was Aeris' night out, and she was going to spend it dancing to the liquid tones of Beautifully Green Poison in their latest gig.

It was during the second song, _My Heart is Lying Bleeding and Broken_, that she noticed the tall boy with the spiky black hair and faintly glowing blue eyes. Dancing about wildly, jumping, writing in midair, she contrived to land almost between him and his worried looking friend, with the same blue eyes, but hair more yellow than blonde. She wondered for a moment if they were 'together' but decided to have a go.

Feigning giddiness, she bumped into the one with black hair and turned about as if she were going to apologize.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! It's just that I've, well, you know! Heehee!" She wiggled her almost-empty glass of opaline at him, and grinned insanely. "Hi! I'm Aeris!"

He smiled down at her, looking faintly amused, then pushed his friend away. "Hi. I'm Zack. Care for a drink?"

*****

Hojo waited in his office for Tseng to come and tell him the latest news of the Ancient. The Turk was always perfectly punctual, arriving at the exact moment Hojo had requested his time, and was always perfectly groomed. Not a hair out of place. Not a stray thread on his suit. Not even a squeaking of the shoes, or any kind of fidgeting, or, indeed, any sign that Tseng was human at all and not an automaton of some sort. To Hojo it was massively disturbing, and, in another way, a great triumph. Tseng had been one of the original test subjects for the Jenova treatments and he had turned out even better than had been hoped.

As always, the clock's LCD numerals shimmered to eleven-thirty AM, Midgar Standard Time, and a respectful knock made itself known, almost apologetically. Hojo winced internally. _Always_ perfect timing. It might be a neurosis of some sort, which could be a result of the Jenova treatment, or it might be something else entirely. It might just be an overdeveloped sense of duty. Whatever it was, it was annoying. He wondered if there was anything that could be done about it, and then decided that whatever Tseng had about him that was disturbing, it was more than outweighed by his exacting standards for new inductees into the Turks, and on how to keep his organization in line. Still, he wasn't nearly as good as Valentine, but Valentine had been...taken care of. Severely. So severely that Hojo hoped very sincerely that no-one would ever find out what he had done to the man. Hojo was a very, very callous person, but he knew what the courts were for, and that there were international bans on the sort of thing he had done to Valentine. But he had stood in the way. He had not seen the Plan. It was very important, the Plan. Lucretia had, in the end, stood in the way of the Plan, and what had happened to _her_? Insanity, suicidal tendencies, and a totally irrational desire to see her son. Women. So delicate, so easily used, used up, and then thrown away. And throw her away he had, drugging her, and having her taken to the Gongaga province and left there to live or die as she could. What else was he to do? She was a threat to the Project and to security. What if Sephiroth had somehow come across her, babbling and twitching? And after that nanny had told him that his mother was Jenova...well, what might that have done to the poor lad? After all, Jenova was, in a way, the mother of Sephiroth, or, at least, the origin of his incredible strength, his agility, his astounding intelligence, all tidily shut away behind a devastatingly beautiful mask of bone and flesh, proving that brains and beauty were not necessarily opposites.

He sighed, and buzzed Tseng in.

Tseng was, as always, immaculate. His navy suit, creases perfect, not a speck of dust. His jet-black hair, shining, brushed back revealing his widow's peak. A tiny circle, dark red, tattooed above his Third Eye, not a pinprick of ink out of place. Revoltingly perfect. Far too polished and ever so tidy.

How Hojo hated the man!

Tseng spoke, perfectly trained to erase the faint Wutese accent that he had carried with him from his homeland.

"Sir, my operatives have not observed any new activity in the subject that does not correspond with the database."

The scientist considered this for a moment. "What was the new activity that _did_ correspond with the database?"

The Turk frowned slightly. "Sir, the subject _has_ been followed en route to the Sector Three Slums, but we lost her there. The subject had adopted a very different form of dress. We barely recognized her when she left her house."

"What was she wearing?"

Tseng frowned even more. "Black, sir. Lots of black. Torn lace, silver jewellery, and a new staff, with spikes. We last saw her around the Happy Hauler Inn."

"And how does this new getup correspond with the database?"

"Sir, we have noticed that the subject has been buying new clothes at a small shop in Sector Seven. The shop caters to people who adopt an anachronistic style of dress with a very dark undertone. Basically, they are Goths, sir. We do know that the subject's adoptive mother has forbidden that style of dress, so perhaps this has something to do with teenage rebellion."

"I see. But she is coming to no...harm when she goes out on these outings, is she?"

Aha. a faint frown there. Worry for the girl, it would seem. Yes, Hojo knew quite a bit more than Tseng thought, at least in that particular province.

"No, she has never come to any harm, although it could be a matter of time. That part of the slums is more...degenerated than the others, and it is home to the more uncouth classes. However, her fearsome appearance and new weapon may deter any assault. Also, she wears a pentacle around her neck. It could be that it scares off any would-be attackers. After all, it is a symbol considered indicative of witchcraft. Her unique link with the Planet probably enhances that idea."

"You know, Tseng, you may be right. Do make sure that no harm befalls her. After all, if we lost her, we would lose a very important part of the Jenova Project, would we not?

Tseng nodded. "Yes, sir. I will dispatch additional operatives to the places she frequents and ensure that she is safe."

"And I want you to resume your efforts to win her over to our cause."

__

Very perturbed now. The Turk was actually biting his lip! Clearly, Tseng was weaker than expected. Hojo noticed that his guest's lower lip was actually quite chapped, and was so reddened that it almost looked as though he were wearing lipstick. He had been nibbling for quite some time, it seemed. It was obvious that he didn't want to disturb the girl, but Hojo cared not for what the girl thought, or, for that matter, what Tseng thought.

"Yes, sir. I will post men around the house, and renew my attempts to bring her topside."

"_Very_ good, Tseng. That is all, I think."

As Tseng passed the door, Hojo called out, almost in afterthought.

"You wouldn't happen to have surveillance photos of the subject in her new outfits, would you? They would be invaluable for research, or perhaps even blackmail..."

Tseng turned, visibly blanched. "...Blackmail, sir?"

Hojo grinned, a feral grin. "Well, of course. If the girl does not want her mother to discover her new hobby, she would have to comply with our requests, now wouldn't she?"

And now, even more lip-biting. Clearly, something was twisting around internally.

"...Yes, sir."

"Thank you, Tseng. _Do _be sure to send up those pictures. You may go."

He went.

Hojo smiled.

A/N: Oho! Gothic Aeris? What am I thinking? Well, I NEEDED to explain how Aeris met Zack in the first place, and to be open, I have always loved the idea of a Goth Aeris, because Goth girls are pretty, Aeris is pretty, how do I make Aeris even more beautiful? Goth Aeris! Also, it gave me a chance to give her a whirl with the _feé verte_, which I could NOT resist.

Also, notice the little wondering if Zack and Clod are 'together'? Again, I couldn't resist - Zack+Clod slash is sooooo funny and I had to hint at it at least :P


	13. Lifting the Veil of the Face of God

Author's Notes: Legal crap. I own a computer and a variety of books of Witchcraft, LOTS of incense, religious items and some herbs. Please don't take them away, Square people! After all, I'm not really altering the characters (aside from Aeris' Gothiness) or anything....

Anyway. I decided to have a go with Tifa, because I've ignored her altogether, and also I created my own vision of what happens during the SOLDIER-Making-Of-Process-Thing. Also a fun little bit with Reno, and how Aeris got her necklace. Enjoy.

Every day, Tifa Lockheart devoured the daily newspaper, _Nibel Province Herald_, hoping for any mention, however small, of Cloud. First, she read Midgar's news, then the bulletins from the Wutese front, with the idea that he would be involved somehow, what with him being in SOLDIER and all.

Every day, she was disappointed. There was mention of Sephiroth, yes, and of the other powerful Wutese warlords, and the newest developments with the AVALANCHE situation, but no Cloud. She even checked the obituaries, wondering if he had suddenly died, perhaps from Mako poisoning after the infusion process.

Every day, she checked the mailbox, hoping for a letter, and every day she found nothing.

Her friends laughed at her. After all, they had always hated Cloud. She herself had never really been that attached to him, but when he had tried to help her on the day her mother died, and when they had met at the well, she had found that he wasn't all that bad. At first, her search for news was spawned from a curiosity as to how he was doing, since he was from Nibelheim, but slowly, it had turned into wondering how things were for the boy.

Every day, she went about her business, spending hours with Master Zangan, and every day, she hoped.

*****

Today was the day, the day when the training group would finally undergo the Mako treatments and take one step down the road of inhumanity. A small step, yes, but the first step was, as everyone knew, the hardest, and then it got easy. Easy to kill, easy to ignore screams of anguish and cries for mercy, easy to slaughter innocents, easy to commit rape, easy to burn down villages of 'rebels' who were unlucky enough to live on the wrong side of a border, easy to be inhuman and ignore the little voices that told you that things were _wrong_, the little voices that would eventually go away if you told them to shut up and leave you alone.

Cloud suspected that Sephiroth had told his own little voices to shut up a very long time ago.

Cloud didn't know the half of it, really.

Very few people had the faintest idea of a quarter of it.

Today the group would undergo the first stages of the infusion process. There had been a big assembly, with Professor Hojo, brutal dictator of the Science Department, inventor of the infusion process, and head of the mysterious Jenova Project that people weren't supposed to know about. The gaunt man had explained what would happen.

First, they would have to fill out a liability waiver. This was _very _important, because Shin-Ra did not need lawsuits on the behalf of brain-dead vegetables with eyes that glowed so brightly they were painful to look at.

After they filled out the waiver, they would be taken to a large showering facility where they would be drenched with a Mako and water mixture. After drying off, they would go to the infusion center and would be strapped to the operation tables. This was because the Mako that would shortly course through their veins would fire off muscles, cause twitches, and make their bodies writhe and shake and jerk about.

The needles would be inserted into both arms and both legs, with a longer, thicker one in the center of the chest, all burning with the exquisite green glow that was Mako. Exsanguination tubes would drain their blood, allowing their entire circulatory system to fill with the luminous emerald fluid, for just a moment, infusing their very being with the power, and then pumps would kick in, and force the Mako out and the blood back in. While it was in the holding tanks, their blood would be tainted with fresh Mako, to ensure complete infusion.

By now, their eyes would have taken on the brighter glow that was the sign of the process. A few weeks before the process, the entire group had been tested with a little injection of Mako, to ensure that there were no potentially fatal allergic reactions during the actual infusion. All but a few had passed and had not exhibited the itching, the swelling, and the faint green colouration of the skin that showed an allergy. Well, some might have covered it with cosmetics or some form of concealment. Those who had would undoubtedly die on the tables, their lies revealed as an agonized rictus that would forever mark their faces. The ones who passed the test earlier bore the faint light in their eyes that spoke of light Mako treatment.

After the initial stages, when they had all been examined for signs of insanity, mutation, or any of the small host of side-effects that resulted from the process, they would then be permitted to take the final step.

They would be placed in large pods that would be filled with diluted Mako and liquid air, contaminated with traces of the chemical that gave the members of SOLDIER their incredible strength. They would stay in the pods for a carefully controlled time period, then released and taken to the medical division for recuperation.

Their eyes would forever burn with the powers of the Planet's blood. Brown eyes would glow like lovingly polished wood under a shaft of sunlight, blue eyes would blaze with the colour of the lighting-flash, green eyes would luminesce with the strength of emeralds, of beryl, an exquisite glow that was rivalled only by pure Mako in hue. Eternally coruscating beauty, a gift and a curse, brighter than the luciferin that lent its light to the deep-sea fishes, paler than the sun. 

Cloud's heart was in his mouth as he signed his name at the end of the form, initialled and dated where indicated, then inked his thumb and carefully pressed it in the square set aside for that identification. He stuck near Zack as they were led to the showering facility, stripped, and stepped under the nozzle that would spew radiance and near-Godhood upon him.

Green fire burned in their veins and the secrets of all Creation were made clear to them, and then, there was eternity.

*****

Reno sauntered into the lounge, plopped into a well-worn chair that had conformed to his shape years ago, reached over to the endtable, and grabbed his packet of cigarettes. He took a deep drag, then sighed happily.

"Sweet Lady Nicotine, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!"

He puffed smoke rings as he counted.

"One. You're a _bad_ girl. Two. You're great after sex. Three. You're great _during_ sex. Four. You're a-"

He was interrupted by Tseng somehow managing to silently barge in, followed by Rude.

"Reno. Get out of that chair and _straighten yourself out_! You're a _Turk_, not a lounge-lizard!"

The red-haired Turk leapt up, desperately tried, and failed, to tuck in his shirt, and ran his fingers through his tangled and knotted ponytail. He stubbed out his cigarette on the arm of the chair and ignored the stench of burning upholstery. Then Reno smiled at his commanding officer.

"And what can I do for you, Tseng?"

Tseng smiled an icy smile that was devoid of feeling. "I need you to step up surveillance on the flower girl in Sector Six Slum. Hojo wants us to make sure that nothing happens to her. In addition, I need you to try and win her over to Shin-Ra's cause."

Reno sighed. "Crap. You do remember that her mother chased me out of her house with a hot frying-pan, don't you?"

"Considering the fact that you'd just squeezed her daughter's rear end, I don't find that at all surprising. I think it's rather commendable, actually. Maybe that would have cured you of your disgusting attitude towards that poor girl."

Reno's eyes widened slightly at the words 'poor girl'. Tseng was being a bit too nasty. Tseng was _never_ nasty, unless he had something big going on, or if he really didn't agree with what he'd been told to do. And Reno knew that Tseng didn't have anything going on. Obviously, old feelings for the flower girl.

He grinned. "Yes, sir. I have seen the error of my ways and will go to confession immediately! I will never again squeeze, prod, goose, or poke another woman's rear or front ends again."

He stepped past Tseng, said "I'm on it!", and then squeezed past Rude, tweaking him on the bottom as he went.

And then he laughed.

As he walked down the hall, he yelled back, "I never said I wouldn't do it to a man!"

God, fucking up his superiors was fun.

*****

You could buy a human life in Wall Market. You could buy a gun, or a sword, or a small collection of crystallized souls in sphere form, from the Materia dealer, who secretly had a habit of grinding them to a fine powder and snorting the dust, getting high off forgotten wisdom. Any form of drug, any vice, any _thing_ was to be had somewhere. The Don's women of negotiable affection strutted brazenly, calling out to any likely prospect, the girls from Honeybee Inn skittering around trying to avoid the Don's whores. The slowly steaming pile of refuse behind the weapon shop, the sound of a blackjack striking an unsuspecting skull, the flashing lights, all of it, Wall Market! 

In a culvert, an emaciated man in a shapeless black robe, whose eyes shone unendurably bright, who bore a new tattoo, so new it had not yet healed, on his hand, who uttered only moans of pain, lay down to rest. Wisps of silvery hair stuck out from his hood.

*****

Aeris and Zack sat on the Mog's head, watching the children run and jump in the tiny playground. She leaned against him and sighed.

"Promise you'll never tell Shin-Ra about me?"

"How many times do I have to promise?"

"A million times would not be enough..."

Zack sat up and looked at her. "Have the Turks been bothering you again?"

She tried to look at him, but shifted her gaze to a little girl on the swingset. "...not that you'd really notice. Tseng never bothers me. He's always very nice and polite, but I can tell why he talks to me, and I can tell that he doesn't want to have to try and win me over to Shin-Ra. He buys me dresses and takes me to that sushi bar I like, and it's almost like he's trying to make up for having an ulterior motive. He does like me, though. It's just that he has to hide that behind a thin mask of wanting me for Shin-Ra." Aeris snorted. "As though they really want me so I can make everyone in the Slums happy!"

"Well, then, why do they want you?"

"Because, I've told you. Because my mother was an Ancient and my father was some important Shin-Ra guy. I don't even know how they found me. It's not as though they have some sort of Ancient detector."

Zack smiled at her. "Yeah, they do, and it goes 'beep, beep, beeeeeep' whenever you go near it, and they have to use it because you don't look different enough in all that pink and red and with your funny hair and the flowers! How could they pick you out of a crowd, anyway? You look entirely human."

She smacked him playfully. "You _know_ that I don't look visibly different. Tseng said that there's only faint differences in the bone structure, and especially in that of the face...but it's my mind that they want. They want me to speak to the Planet and find out where the Promised Land is."

Zack tried to steer her away from the topic. "So, I heard that Beautifully Green Poison is going to be at Opaline Dream tonight...and I just happen to have a little something here for my favorite flower girl..." He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a velvet-covered oblong box, which he handed to Aeris.

She opened it and gasped. "Oh, Zack, it's beautiful!" She gently lifted out a thin length of black ribbon, from which dangled three silver triangles. "Will you fasten it?" She turned her back to him and gave him the necklace. He carefully tied it, lifting aside her hair, then extracted a few strands and held them to his nose, and inhaled deeply.

"Your hair always smells so beautiful..." He sniffed again. "Jasmine and ylang-ylang?"

Aeris turned back to him and smiled. "And a bit of patchouli. I know you like patchouli, so I added some scent to my shampoo. That vial of oil cost me twenty gil. I hope you're worth it!"

"Damn straight I am, after I spend all that money on a pretty necklace for an even prettier girl..."

"Am I really the prettiest girl, Zack?"

"Would I lie to you, Prettiest Girl?"

"You better not, or something bad will happen, I expect. Mom is pretty good with a hot frying-pan. I wish you'd been there when she went after Reno with it. I almost thought Tseng would have done it for me."

"...Yeah. Anyway, we have a bar to go to...is your mother home?"

"No."

"Good. I love seeing you dressed in black, you know. So nice and dark and _sexy_. Who would ever suspect the cheerful Aeris of looking like _that_?"

Aeris laughed. "Not my mother, and that's the point, isn't it? And you're right, we have some absinthe to drink and some friends to see." Zack leapt off the Mog, and she extended her hand. "Help me down?"

A/N: So! How Cetra and humans are different, Aeris likes sushi (but who doesn't?), Reno squeezed Rude's butt! Is Reno gay? Is he bi? Who knows? Will Clod pass the infusion process, or will he end up some Mako-poisoned wreck? Isn't he _already_ a Mako-poisoned wreck? What's up with the guy in the black robe?

Now. I WANT REVIEWS. If I don't get reviews, I will kidnap Sephiroth AND Reno AND Vincent and lock them in my cold dark unfinished basement where they will have to live on Annual Commercial Gift Day decorations and insulation, and I'll take Jenova and Aeris and lock them in a different room (well, Aeris may stay upstairs) and I will hold them ALL HOSTAGE until I get some nice reviews. People who give me nice reviews will get a random piece of a character's clothing and a box of crescent cakes, how's that? And maybe, just maybe, I'll let everyone but Aeris and Seph go, and I'll pen them up in the back yard till they breed and give us lots of little tiny AeriSeph babies.


End file.
